WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Dark Fantasy Doctor Was Mistaken for a Saint ◈
Chapter 101: Faith Reassembled (1)
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* * *
Simeon returned a week after he had left.
“I’m back, Young Master.”
“Simeon. Have you finished your pilgrimage now?”
“Yes.”
There were only Simeon and me in the room.
The narrow-eyed man smiled.
“Thanks to you, Saint, I was able to end my long wandering. This worthless prodigal has finally returned to the gods’ side.”
When we met again, Simeon wore the white robe of a healer priest instead of his shabby black cassock.
He took a sheet of parchment from his robes.
A blue seal had been stamped on one side of the old, yellowed paper.
It was the Seal of Purification given to priests who had completed their pilgrimage.
[Pilgrim Simeon Ronald has washed away all impurity and proven that he stands before the gods once more.]
“Now you will have to pay taxes again, Brother.”
“But I will regain the rights of a healer priest.”
Pilgrims did not pay taxes.
They could cross any city wall without inspection and had the right to stay one night at any temple.
In exchange, they could not enjoy the rights held by healer priests.
Those rights included obtaining catalysts for divine magic almost free of charge and purchasing sacred relics at very low prices.
This parchment certified that he had returned from being a pilgrim to being a healer priest.
“All right, Simeon. I asked you this before, but I’ll ask again. You want me to take you in?”
“That is correct. I would be honored if you allowed me to serve you, Young Master.”
The narrow-eyed man lowered his head.
An attendant priest.
It was a position much like a high-ranking priest’s secretary or adjutant.
As one could see from the diocesan head and Gregor, even senior priests had one or two attendant priests following them.
As a saint, I should have had at least one attendant priest myself.
But my double identity had been a problem, so I had not kept anyone at my side until now.
‘To have Simeon as my attendant priest...’
He was suitable in many ways.
For one thing, he had been both my parents’ disciple and attendant priest.
And since he knew about my double life, he was ideal to keep nearby.
Still, one thing bothered me.
“Simeon. You were the person who watched my parents’ ideals most closely. And I am their child, carrying on those ideals.”
“...”
“Then would it not be fair to say that Simeon and I are of the same generation?”
In other words, Simeon was practically my senior.
He had been my parents’ disciple.
It felt uncomfortable to treat him as my subordinate.
“If Simeon is all right with it, I could treat you as someone of my own generation...”
“That must never happen.”
But Simeon’s response was firm.
“How could a sinner like me dare stand beside you, Young Master, no, Saint? That must never happen.”
Simeon lowered his head.
“I was the sole successor to Masters Schnabel’s ideals. Their hands and hearts remained as the only light in this foolish man’s heart. But until now, I did not understand what an immense honor that was.”
“...”
“Rather than seeing it as a responsibility, I dared believe it was my right. Was the world worthy to receive their ideals? Was that person worthy of receiving their love? I dared hold such a standard and judge humanity in their names. I even tested you, Young Master.”
His shoulders trembled once.
“That was arrogance. I am an arrogant and utterly ugly sinner. And that is not all. As a lowly priest, I even dared try to test the gods.”
Thump. Thump.
Simeon struck his chest.
“I do not dare think there is any path by which those sins may be forgiven. And yet someone like me would be of the same generation as you, Saint? Mud must not be smeared upon the sun.”
“I am not the sun, but if you ask me, the sun would not mind.”
“Of course it would not. You are not someone whose light could be tarnished by a person like me. But I am too sinful. So please grant me the chance to begin again from the lowest place, so that I may atone.”
Bow.
Simeon lowered his head.
I watched the crown of his head silently before speaking.
“Brother Simeon.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“If that will lighten the burden in your heart even a little, then do so.”
It would be ugly to keep tearing into someone who wanted to atone and stop him.
What else could I do?
He wanted to start again as a first-year resident.
‘It’s a little burdensome, but it can’t be helped.’
To me, Simeon was like an uncle.
The thought of someone like that becoming my secretary made the back of my head itch a little.
Still, that was something only I had to endure.
“Good. Then there is something that needs to be done before becoming my attendant priest.”
Clack.
I set a box on the desk.
When I opened it, a brass cross appeared inside.
It was the graduation gift my parents had prepared for Simeon, a brass cross.
“I am giving this to you after twenty years. At least, I believed that you were alive, Simeon.”
Honestly, I had forgotten this keepsake existed.
Still, I had kept it and waited until Simeon came back, so that meant I had believed in him.
“Congratulations on your graduation, Simeon, low-ranking healer priest. May the god of mercy be with you on the path you walk from now on.”
“...”
The man carefully picked up the brass cross.
Then, without a word, he lowered his head and his shoulders shook faintly.
* * *
“Simeon, would you tell me about my parents?”
It began after Simeon officially became my attendant priest.
After he joined me, I asked him to tell me in detail about the accomplishments of my parents that I did not know.
They were the sort of people who carried their grimoires around rather than leaving them at home.
That was why none of their research records had remained in my hands.
Besides, I kept hearing about my parents’ accomplishments, yet their research findings were strangely difficult to find in healing academia.
“Simeon, you know about the research my parents conducted too, right? Do you remember what parasites they studied?”
“When my masters sent me away, they sent their research records with me as well.”
According to Simeon, the two-person teleportation circle that the couple gave up at the end had carried both Simeon and a box containing their research records.
“I tried to show these records to the Church, but... some priests tried to claim these accomplishments as their own. So I took them back and kept them myself.”
Those old people, honestly.
Since my parents were already dead, they had apparently intended to quietly turn unannounced discoveries into their own accomplishments.
Simeon said that he could not bring himself to hand the records over to such priests, so he had kept them himself.
“Then may I take a look?”
“You alone are worthy of seeing these in this world, Young Master. If necessary, even my memories could be erased...”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Simeon.”
After stopping Simeon, who had suddenly gone off the rails, I received my parents’ research records through him.
The records were heavy even when held in both hands.
There were over a dozen notebooks bound with old leather cords.
Bundles of sheets stitched together, excerpts pasted together with glue, and more than a hundred hand-drawn diagrams.
The edges of the paper were stained with dirt and grass juice.
I mailed the huge stack of research records as a parcel, then returned to my academy laboratory.
After that, I returned to my parents’ records, even cutting back on meals to review them.
And during that process, I realized something.
‘They were not parasite specialists...?’
No, strictly speaking, they were parasite specialists.
They simply did not specialize only in parasites.
‘My parents seem closer to ecological researchers than doctors.’
The first page was already a little strange.
[Imperial South, Swampland Mosquito Collection Log]
[Outer Demon Realm, Black-Silver Herb Sample Collection Report]
[Baekgak Ridge Cave, Bat Dropping Collection Record]
“...”
They were extraordinary people in many ways.
Unlike a coward like me, hiding inside the walls, they had personally studied ecosystems in the Demon Realm beyond the walls in order to learn about the ecology of parasites.
‘No wonder all their other disciples dropped out except Simeon...’
Really.
They were unusual people in many ways.
In any case, the records my parents had left behind while exploring places throughout the Empire’s south and north were diverse.
Still, I found quite a few small errors along the way.
[A parasitic organism that travels up a swimmer’s nasal passage and consumes the brain’s gray matter, tentatively named the brain-eating amoeba.]
This creature, for example.
More accurately, it was some kind of amoeba.
Naegleria amoeba? Fowleri amoeba?
I could not remember, but it was the amoeba famous for eating brains.
My parents had classified it as a parasite.
‘This is not a parasite. It’s a protozoan.’
They had also recorded fungi, or mold, as plant-based parasites.
Perhaps this world lacked the relevant concepts.
The research notes seemed to need reclassification in many ways.
But...
‘They’re incredible.’
Those minor errors did not diminish the value of these research notes in the slightest.
The more I reviewed them, the more impressed I became by my parents.
‘So Father was not just flattering my birth parents all those years.’
My godfather had always said this.
My parents had truly been wonderful people.
I had thought they were impressive simply because they had gone to provide medical aid on the Southern Front.
But after seeing these research records, I changed my mind.
‘They were true geniuses, not manufactured geniuses like me...’
I was not someone who made new discoveries.
I was someone who borrowed memories from a past life.
Strictly speaking, I was closer to someone imitating a genius.
But my parents were different.
They had made discoveries like these without memories from a past life.
People said that going from zero to one was the hard part.
Perhaps, if my parents had lived longer, they might have become authorities in infectious disease research.
‘Looking at these records, I understand why the priests were blinded by greed and tried to claim them as their own.’
Simeon was the truly remarkable one.
He had hidden them for twenty years without claiming them as his own accomplishment.
That showed how extraordinary his respect for my parents and faith in the gods must have been.
‘It would be best for me to polish these up a little and publish them as the achievements of Simeon and the Schnabel couple.’
Publishing them as my own would be far too shameless.
It would be unconscionable to sort through a few things and announce them as my achievement.
Still, there were two major things I could gain from these records.
One was the techniques my parents had developed to study these tiny microorganisms.
‘To think they used magic instead of microscopes.’
And the other was...
‘The ecology of molds is recorded in detail. With this...’
I could now deliberately cultivate mold.
Of course, the process would be difficult and take a long time, just as it had when making the vaccine.
I would have to create black magic that did not yet exist.
Like the magic to control mosquitoes, it would probably take years.
‘It would not be strange if it took decades.’
Still, just seeing a path ahead made me excited.
As soon as I made up my mind, I summoned my master.
Since it involved creating magic, I thought my master would probably like it too.
‘My master liked it when I made the vaccine and the mosquito-control magic last time. Will they like this too?’
Still, I needed to be careful about persuading them.
Black magic using mold as a catalyst could be used well enough to bring down an overpass.
But how would my master react if their disciple suddenly said, “I want to create magic for mass-producing mold!”
“Are you dreaming of reviving the Magic Tower of the Thirteenth Month?”
I could not complain even if I were immediately treated like an otherworldly Nazi.
In fact, black magic could easily destroy several fortresses if one put their mind to it.
‘Tch. I should probably prove the effects of blue mold before creating magic to multiply mold.’
There was always an order to things.
If I got excited and ignored that order, I could not complain if people misunderstood me.
‘Take it step by step.’
First, I needed to start persuading healers that bacteria existed.
There was one reason I had delayed this until now.
I would have to reveal that healers had been killing people because they did not wash their hands, and there was no way they would take that gracefully.
So I had endured.
If I put forward the germ theory with insufficient authority and inadequate techniques, I could have been socially buried.
But there was no need for that now.
I had a way to prove bacteria existed.
And I had the authority to put forward the theory.
‘I cannot put it off forever.’
Thanks to my parents, I could finally take my first steps.
Thinking that, I closed the book.
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